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unexciting run-ins with the law
(i kind of wish i'd written more about the normal part before all the bugfuck came to the surface, but who am i kidding, there was no normal part. I do regret not blogging stuff once I hit the rhythm, but I'll try to be succinct about it now.)
The rhythm starts easy; quietjob on Monday and the first half of Tuesday, and then again on Friday morning, and quietjob might be complicated but is never stressful in a conventional sense...just odd. I really don't care what's up with my boss. He's competent and also kind, which is enough of what matters that I can set the weird to 'ignore'; not much of it gets in the way of my job, only little things like the impenetrable haze between me and the clients I never see, mediated by this slow patter of platitudes - and the kindness manifests as semi-robotic compliments regarding my work, which I accept as if they were sincere and meaningful.
There are three of us; me, my boss and the data entry guy. I am the youngest by about forty years. There's almost no smalltalk (I heard the first hint of it yesterday; some measured appreciation expressed towards Our Kenyan Socialist Muslim Overlord). I am more than fine with this - I have got good at smalltalk over the last few years and have learned how to extract meaningful contact from it, but I am just as happy to not pretend to know the people I work with, or to let them pretend to know me.
So I mentioned the place is a godawful mess? Last Monday I showed up and found that my desk was mysteriously devoid of teetering stacks of paper; I didn't mention this at all, because I'd resolved to not engage with any of the weird (M, who handles the social skills for me, tells me not saying anything was a faux pas on my part, and I am sure he would be right in any normal social situation but I have some major Do Not Engage; Somebody Else's Problem reticence going on here). My boss did later mention it in passing; that he came in the day before (ie. on a sunday) to clean up because it is all too messy and now there is a woman working there!
...Yeah I am so not engaging. I am a neatfreak by preference (though less so than my brother), but wow do I know how to put up with other people's revolting uncleanliness and hoarding. The emerging theme here, even, is that I am well-equipped (or indoctrinated, if you prefer) to handle fucking bizarre situations without expecting that I can change them, or wasting energy to that effect.
Later in the week, a person equipped with many cleaning devices appeared and verily cleaned several of the things, and today my boss spoke of contracting a document shredding service. Also, at some point I would probably be able to place more clearly if I'd been updating my goddamn blog (maybe last tuesday?), some European chocolate appeared on my clean desk. A bar of praline Ritter Sport and some Choco Leibniz, nothing impossible to come by over here, but distinctly unamerican. My cubicle is right near the front door (which has half of its weatherstripping missing so it gets FREAKING DRAUGHTY, which is the one and only thing I've even kind of complained of ever) and appointments end up happening there sometimes when I'm not around; so, probably a random gift from a client. I suspect my boss of being a health freak - nuts are his only known food source and I think I've seen running magazines poking out from under the piles of stuff (two of my previous batshit employers have been runners, and one of the others was a nutritional supplements freak), and certain of the platitudes express a commitment to health; so here I am with an entirely plausible explanation for the inexplicable and unmentioned pile of unopened chocolate on my desk which nevertheless does not prevent it from slowly calcifying into something much like the Fridge in The Long Dark Tea-Time Of The Soul.
On Friday, the police came. My boss quietly informed me that he'd called them on the People Upstairs (the mobster hackers, remember them?!) who were making noises, which I had somehow failed to hear, doubtless due to not being a paranoid fantasist, a deficiency evidently (but politely) shared by the two police officers. They further mentioned having responded to several prior complaints about there being listening devices hidden in the office. They seemed oddly sceptical about these complaints, which my boss insisted were justified. I sat in my fucking cubicle reading Chasm City and ignoring everything until the poor fucks had gone away.
I have another six weeks left of keeping my head down in my work, and I really don't care. The other job is much more engaging, but also more explodey; not on me, as such (and I still love the work), but it's driving me back into my skull and sparking long, dangerous conversations with the imaginary people in my head about the warning signs that just aren't there.
The rhythm starts easy; quietjob on Monday and the first half of Tuesday, and then again on Friday morning, and quietjob might be complicated but is never stressful in a conventional sense...just odd. I really don't care what's up with my boss. He's competent and also kind, which is enough of what matters that I can set the weird to 'ignore'; not much of it gets in the way of my job, only little things like the impenetrable haze between me and the clients I never see, mediated by this slow patter of platitudes - and the kindness manifests as semi-robotic compliments regarding my work, which I accept as if they were sincere and meaningful.
There are three of us; me, my boss and the data entry guy. I am the youngest by about forty years. There's almost no smalltalk (I heard the first hint of it yesterday; some measured appreciation expressed towards Our Kenyan Socialist Muslim Overlord). I am more than fine with this - I have got good at smalltalk over the last few years and have learned how to extract meaningful contact from it, but I am just as happy to not pretend to know the people I work with, or to let them pretend to know me.
So I mentioned the place is a godawful mess? Last Monday I showed up and found that my desk was mysteriously devoid of teetering stacks of paper; I didn't mention this at all, because I'd resolved to not engage with any of the weird (M, who handles the social skills for me, tells me not saying anything was a faux pas on my part, and I am sure he would be right in any normal social situation but I have some major Do Not Engage; Somebody Else's Problem reticence going on here). My boss did later mention it in passing; that he came in the day before (ie. on a sunday) to clean up because it is all too messy and now there is a woman working there!
...Yeah I am so not engaging. I am a neatfreak by preference (though less so than my brother), but wow do I know how to put up with other people's revolting uncleanliness and hoarding. The emerging theme here, even, is that I am well-equipped (or indoctrinated, if you prefer) to handle fucking bizarre situations without expecting that I can change them, or wasting energy to that effect.
Later in the week, a person equipped with many cleaning devices appeared and verily cleaned several of the things, and today my boss spoke of contracting a document shredding service. Also, at some point I would probably be able to place more clearly if I'd been updating my goddamn blog (maybe last tuesday?), some European chocolate appeared on my clean desk. A bar of praline Ritter Sport and some Choco Leibniz, nothing impossible to come by over here, but distinctly unamerican. My cubicle is right near the front door (which has half of its weatherstripping missing so it gets FREAKING DRAUGHTY, which is the one and only thing I've even kind of complained of ever) and appointments end up happening there sometimes when I'm not around; so, probably a random gift from a client. I suspect my boss of being a health freak - nuts are his only known food source and I think I've seen running magazines poking out from under the piles of stuff (two of my previous batshit employers have been runners, and one of the others was a nutritional supplements freak), and certain of the platitudes express a commitment to health; so here I am with an entirely plausible explanation for the inexplicable and unmentioned pile of unopened chocolate on my desk which nevertheless does not prevent it from slowly calcifying into something much like the Fridge in The Long Dark Tea-Time Of The Soul.
On Friday, the police came. My boss quietly informed me that he'd called them on the People Upstairs (the mobster hackers, remember them?!) who were making noises, which I had somehow failed to hear, doubtless due to not being a paranoid fantasist, a deficiency evidently (but politely) shared by the two police officers. They further mentioned having responded to several prior complaints about there being listening devices hidden in the office. They seemed oddly sceptical about these complaints, which my boss insisted were justified. I sat in my fucking cubicle reading Chasm City and ignoring everything until the poor fucks had gone away.
I have another six weeks left of keeping my head down in my work, and I really don't care. The other job is much more engaging, but also more explodey; not on me, as such (and I still love the work), but it's driving me back into my skull and sparking long, dangerous conversations with the imaginary people in my head about the warning signs that just aren't there.
no subject